Foyer La Baraudelle is a day care center that provides specialized accommodation for people suffering from physical or/and cerebral disability. It provides to the residents specific and adapted living conditions (accommodation, frame, medical care…) and proposes them leisure and personal development activities. Residents age varies from 18 to 60 years old. Day care center can host around 40 residents with different level of handicap and support other people with mixed abilities during daytime activities.
Project description
The mission of the ESC project in Foyer La Baraudelle is to help the residents to get their balance, to encourage them to socialize by improving their relations with others, to include them in the local community life by stimulating the development of active citizenship. To reach this, organization together with ESC volunteer organize various type of activities:
- Sports: horse riding, archery, swimming…
- Familiarization activities: individual and group outings, thematic trips, celebrations, festivals, concerts…
- Leisure activities: pedagogical garden and farm, computer, radio and video montage, designing anime, drawing, mosaic, decoration workshops…
Project environment
- Foyer La Baraudelle is located in the small town of Attigny, in the Ardennes, rural department in the North-Eastern part of France, close to the Belgian border. Therefore, it is important that the future volunteers love nature and like living close to the nature and animals.
- The two ESC volunteers of La Baraudelle live in a house shared with a third ESC volunteers, the kitchen with the bathroom are shared but they have their own bedrooms. The house has all necessary equipment for living. The building is situated close to the accommodations and collective equipment of the day care center but volunteers have their independence.
- In order to improve their capacity to move in the area, volunteers have the possibility to borrow a car during their free-time.
Number of volunteers hosted: 2
A word from ESC volunteers
Marc from Germany: I work in the animation team, thus, for the residents we organize activities such as decoration, painting, cooking workshops, we play board games etc. After some time volunteering in Foyer la Baraudelle I had already possibility to propose my own new activities. Volunteering at this day care center is a unique experience for me, I like it very much. The residents and my colleagues are very friendly people, they are helpful and patient with the volunteers, we have a lot of fun together.
Ruta from Lithuania: My main tasks as an EVS volunteer are to organize various activities and to assist the residents. We are eating together with residents and we give disabled people a helping hand if they are in need, for example, to cut the food, to bring a napkin or sugar, to open the pack of yogurt etc. In the beginning it was uneasy to understand what they ask me to do but after a while I got to know their eating habits and what assistance is needed, so now it is not difficult at all. After some time of volunteering I was asked to brainstorm for some new animation ideas to do with the residents. Therefore, I have already organized origami, dancing, and table-tennis activities for disabled people. I am also thinking about trying self-expression through movements, teaching English or Russian and reading stories. I like volunteering at Foyer la Baraudelle because here I can do the things I have never done before or I just didn‘t have time to do them before and I am free on trying activities which are interesting for me. It is also interesting to observe local people, their behavior, way of communication, their day-to-day lives which are a bit different from my culture and requires adaptation from my side. The residents and the personnel are friendly and welcoming people, they are understanding and supportive. Talking about the location, Attigny is a small town. I like living here because it‘s close to the nature, I can go out from the house and after 5 minutes I will be in the fields. Unfortunately, public transport from and to Attigny goes very rarely. However, we can use the cars of our organisation to do some small trips.
*EVS stands for « European Voluntary Service », the previous name given to the European Solidarity Corps.
